DOWNTOWN BIEN HOA

A young girl carrying goods

Bien Hoa village street scene. Duck dinner, anyone? Photo by Bruce Hoff

Aerial view of beautiful downtown Bien Hoa.  The Esso gas station is just visible bottom center (see next picture). Many of the buildings were in near ruins after the battle of Tet.  VC holed up in them and U.S. tanks rolled down the streets taking them out. Notice how close buildings are to each other – a fire hazard.  Photo courtesy of Bruce Hoff

A picture of the Esso gas station in Bien Hoa.  Thanks to Len Mathe for the picture.

These three-wheeled, two-cycle, Lambretta cabs/buses were ubiquitous – and were driven like the VC were after them. Notice that everyone is hanging on for dear life except the man in the back – and he’s already carrying crutches; thrill-seeker I guess.

Two women walk past a construction site. I don’t know their proper name, but we called the poles used to suspend baskets and other goods “dummy sticks”.  It was amazing what one person could carry with them (Walmart take note).

Beautiful downtown Bien Hoa.  Black and white outfits, including for the school kids, were the standard fashion.  A good deal of this was near rubble after the Tet offensive of ’68.  The VC hid in buildings during the battle, and U.S. tanks rolled down the streets targeting those buildings.

Most of these types of homes were left behind by the French.  Built on stilts both for flood protection and shade, only more prosperous Vietnamese could afford them.

Fruit, Tide and booze for sale:  Our enlisted men’s club noticed some liquor we had seemed weak.  Close inspection revealed that enterprising Vietnamese had carefully cut the bottoms out of the bottles, drained out about half of the contents and replaced it with water.  We sent samples to the Pasteur Institute in Saigon and at least found there were no poisons or other contaminants.  That’s only one of many clever rip-offs in Vietnam.  Had the south Vietnamese applied as much cunning to their battles, they may have done better.

A lot of what appeared in street markets was stolen goods.  The cups are from a standard U.S. mess hall, the blankets G.I. and the towels U.S.  I guess ya gotta do what ya gotta do to survive in a war zone.  One scene etched indelibly in my brain is of of a woman I saw atop an open dump, picking discarded spaghetti out of the garbage and putting it in a pail to take home to eat.  Poverty was rampant in Vietnam – probably one reason communism appealed to many.

The Vietnamese had their own versions of the Roach Coach.  Shown are a string of them on the edge of town.  One could buy dog and rat meat items from them.  A few troops bold enough to try it said it wasn’t all that bad.  I suspect it was all in the seasoning.  Even some every-day cooking had been influenced by the French.

Catholic children on their way to school:  There was no small element of sectarian conflict in Vietnam between Catholics and Buddhists, with the south’s ruling class being primarily Catholic and the north Buddhist.

It’s perhaps not surprising, given the climate, that sodas and other drinks were popular … even if warm when purchased.  Here shoppers pass a soda stand in Bien Hoa.

 

Small market stands like this abounded.  Note that Tide was pretty much the only detergent that showed up in them.  I guarantee that they weren’t purchased for resale.  Note the Army C-rations for sale (I liked the chicken and the lima beans and ham).  Here a couple of Vietnamese soldiers do a bit of shopping.  I have wondered about the limited availability brands of everything that showed up in the PX system.  Was someone getting kickbacks for their exclusivity?

 

This is a South Vietnamese policeman.  They got tagged with the name “white mice” due to their white shirts and a (highly likely pejorative) allusion to the typically small stature of the South Vietnamese.  There was a psychological edge for American troops created by that stature.  The North Vietnamese, on the other hand, tended to be somewhat more tall.  Then again, if you’re big enough to carry an AK47 that’s an equalizer.  Note the “OFF LIMITS” sign in the background.  Hmmm … I wonder why.  Prostitution was open and widely available, so I doubt that it was a cat house.